Morning Joe - Morning Joe 3/7/25

Episode Date: March 7, 2025

Trump appears to put new limits on Musk's authority

After Trump kicked him out of the White House Friday, President Zelensky went right to Europe for help. He went to the EU summit in Brussels where the press came at him like a school of piranhas. So today, Vladimir, thank you for coming. It's a very important momentula, and I want to thank all our European leaders, first of all, for such strong support, at least from the very beginning of the war. Hold on a minute, wait a minute. At least one of those was an ice cream cone, I think. Wow. Jimmy Kimmel's take on that moment with President Zelensky at the EU headquarters in Brussels. US and Ukraine officials are set to meet in Saudi Arabia next week to discuss peace plans

on how to end the war with Russia. What will come out of those talks, considering Vladimir Putin says he will reject the European proposal. Plus, we'll go over President Trump's whiplash approach to the trade war after he delayed most tariffs on Mexican and Canadian goods yet again. What this now means and the Republican senators who are expressing major concerns.

And a SpaceX Starship exploded during a test flight yesterday just minutes after lifting off from Texas. This is the second straight failure this year for Elon Musk's rocket program. Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It's Friday everybody, March 7th. With us we have the co-host of our fourth hour, Jonathan Lemire. He's a contributing writer at The Atlantic covering the White House and national politics. The host of Way Too Early, Ali Vitale is with us. Pulitzer Prize winning columnist and associate editor of The Washington Post, Eugene Robinson is here.

Senior writer for The Dispatch, David Drucker joins us. Former MSNBC host and contributor to Washington Monthly. Chris Matthews is here and Roger's chair in the American presidency at Vanderbilt University. Historian John Meacham joins us. He's an MSNBC political analyst. Joe, a lot of whiplash to go around. Happy Friday. Well, a lot of whiplash.

And you know, we are all so very happy that you finally have a remote studio in your villa in the south of France. This is all very exciting to all of us. And you can actually, actually you're winding winding up. I guess it's night there in Abu Dhabi. Is it your fourth International Women's Day Conference? Yes. 3050, the 3050 summit with Forbes in Abu Dhabi.

I hear it's just been an extraordinary event. Women all over the world coming there and I hear it's been going extraordinarily well. It's been remarkable. We have a massive increase in attendance, but also women from 46 countries are here. Cross-cultural, multigenerational mentoring, and we had some amazing moments and conversations today. I'll be talking a little bit more this hour about that with Maggie and Huma. Well, that's very exciting, and. I know we all want to hear everything that's going on there.

Again, it is women all over the world coming to the event and such an extraordinarily important message that you've now been a champion of for well over a decade. Just really quickly, I just want to go around the papers very quickly. The Wall Street Journal front page talking about, once again, Donald Trump pairing back tariffs as stocks continue to take a plunge, and they do continue to take a plunge. We saw, speaking of which, we saw, and this is fascinating, you know, Elon Musk, certainly

we all reported that Elon Musk making a ton of money when Donald Trump was elected and when he got in. Tesla stocks have been down about 30%, 35% over the past month. This business story in The New York Times talking about how a lot of owners are very concerned about that, especially in Europe. Obviously, he decided, I think, unnecessarily, I think recklessly, to get involved, Elon Musk did, in German politics and push for the extreme right-wing party that has actually contributed to Tesla cells plummeting, not only in Germany but also across Russia.

Here, when you talk about what's the impact of tariffs, here you have Kroger that's warning about having to guard against massive price hikes. I don't know if anybody's noticed, but the price of eggs, the price of meat, the price of groceries continuing to go up. And that is going to continue, certainly while there's uncertainty around tariffs. And finally, the Wall Street Journal editorial page once again, that very strong editorial. Okay, just keep it right here on this camera. I'm going to move it for you right there. Don't go back to the other camera until I put this down.

You have, of course, another op-ed about real concerns regarding Ukraine. But here you have the Wall Street Journal editorial page saying that there is no emergency when it comes to fentanyl. There is no emergency when it comes to fentanyl. There is no emergency when it comes to border crossings. Those numbers are significantly down. And they warned that if Donald Trump is allowed to do this, the Democrats will use similar emergency — and they put that in quotes — similar emergency powers to push extreme measures on the far left. And so a lot of back and forth, as you said, Mika,

on many things going on, backlash against a lot of these programs, it's fascinating. And we have to always remember this. A lot of these programs are very unpopular with the American people. The idea of getting rid of the Department of Education unpopular, the tariffs un getting rid of the Department of Education unpopular, the tariffs unpopular, very concerning for Americans.

You can go down that laundry list. Donald Trump, though, if you take the cumulative average of his approval ratings, he's still sitting about where he was the night he got elected. It's, you know, he's about 48, 48. So right now, I don't know if those poll numbers where Americans have problems with his policies are leading indicators, or they just don't believe he's going to follow through on some of the more

extreme things, which usually seems to be the case where if you tell people what Donald Trump says, they'll go, he didn't say it. Then if you show them what he said, they go, ah, he doesn't mean it. So we will see. And you know, you look at what's happened with Doge. He's gone back and forth on Doge so many times, whether Elon Musk is in charge or whether he's not in charge. And yesterday that changed again, I think, in one of the most significant ways.

Yeah, and back and forth on tariffs, which we'll get to amid growing backlash over the sweeping federal cuts by Elon Musk's Doge team. President Trump appears to be somewhat limiting the billionaire's power within the federal government. Yesterday, the president told his cabinet secretaries they're in charge of their own departments, not Musk. Trump said Musk's role is to make recommendations on staffing and policy. Following that meeting, the president posted on Truth Social that he's instructed his cabinet secretaries to work with Musk on cost-cutting measures.

He later elaborated on that statement while speaking to reporters at the White House. I want the cabinet members to keep the good people and the people that aren't doing a good job, that are unreliable, don't show up to work, etc. Those people can be cut. Elon and the group are going to be watching them. If they can cut, it's better. And if they don't cut, then Elon will do the cutting. Chris Matthews, I've always told people, if you understand what

Donald Trump is trying to do in the White House, read the first three pages of the art of the deal, where he says, I show up at work, I pick up the phone, I make calls, kind of figure out how things are going, and I sort of feel my way through it. Well, you get that sense with Elon Musk. One day he says Elon's in charge. The next day his cabinet members call up and they're upset. So he goes, Elon's not in charge. He says, instead, the union of Elon's in charge. Now he says, Elon's not in charge, and it's the cabinet members that are not in charge. It bounces back and forth, but there are, of course,

real consequences to that, especially for those people that are taking these cases to the courts. But for now, it does seem he's gotten enough pushback from cabinet members who are now saying, including people like Cash Mattel, who he's very close to, are saying, this is my agency. I don't need this guy with a chainsaw telling me who's going to work for me and who's not

going to work for me and how I'm going to reorganize my own bureaucracy. Yeah, he's doing all this on television, have you noticed? He calls the TV cameras in for the cabinet meetings. He's doing, he's redirecting his cabinet officials, redirecting Musk. I've watched this guy use television like nobody's ever done. When he went out the other night on Tuesday night, talked to the American people and said, we're paying Social Security checks to people who are 160 years old. Anybody reads an obit page knows that's not true. Anybody knows it's not 21. I spending 20 million people out there getting free checks.

That kind of fraud, so this is unbelievable. But he's telling the MAGA people out there, they're stealing your money. Don't trust these people in Washington. These are bad people. They are the deep state. He did it, you know, he talked about the election being stolen. Nobody in America will tell you which states were stolen from him. All the MAGA people, get them in the corner and say, tell me which states were stolen from him. All the MAGA people, get them in the corner and say,

tell me which states were stolen in 2020. They can't tell you. He just told them that. He just said they were stolen. And with Zelensky on television, he said it was great television. I'll never forget that. It was great television where he beat up this guy on television. He and JD Vance.

And they just did it in public. So we all know what Donald Trump thinks of Zelensky. He's teaching us. He's teaching us, don't trust Social Security so he can go after it. Don't trust Ukraine, because he's going to go after Ukraine and diminish that country and its size and its importance, all because this is what Trump thinks.

And that's what it's about. It is Mussolini. It's about believing the leader in what he says verbatim. And that's what Trump does on television. And he's using us to do it, using the medium. So Gene Robinson, you tell me this. And Chris, this is not, this isn't my original thought. Chris Matthews wrote me after the speech and said this.

So Donald Trump stands up and says things that just aren't true. You know, he talks about $350 billion to him, repeats it over and over and over again. 160-year-old people are getting Social Security. Right? That's not happening. But he says it, right? And here's the thing. If you don't know how to respond to a lie,

as Chris has said, that's the biggest audience any politician's gonna get. So Americans, what are they to think? Okay, well, I guess 160 year olds are getting so... I'm sorry. I know it. Well, no, I don't. It's not harder than it looks because I've been in Congress.

I can tell you, it's not harder than it looks. Where are the Democrats when he starts saying this nonsense? Why don't they get one person out there who can communicate extraordinarily well? Make it a meritocracy. Why can't somebody go up there like Barack Obama would have done or like Bill Clinton would have done and just sit there and laugh and go, he says they're on, we used to do this all the time in Congress. Bill Clinton says this, look, and you hold up a shade.

Now that's a lie, that's a lie, that's a lie. Why can't Democrats do this? Why are there now millions of Americans who believe that quote 160 year olds are getting social security checks Well millions of Americans believe it I guess because Trump said it and because you're right it was it wasn't Effectively refuted and to do that you need You need the right messenger. You need to figure out who that is. You need to get that person out fast, and you need to respond to the lies directly

and forcefully, and you need to do it repeatedly too. And you know, so there was a fire hose of lies in that address to the joint session of Congress. So you also have to pick your shots. I mean, it's not that effective if you try to respond to 270 lies all at once. But the big ones, like the social security stuff, which has completely been debunked. Of course, it's ridiculous, but it's also been disproved. Get out there on that because you're right.

He is telling people that this program is fraudulent and that makes it evil and therefore makes it vulnerable to attack. It makes it legitimate to attack it and to slash it. And he does that very intentionally and he does it very well. And Democrats need to find the right person and execute the right strategy, which is push back hard, fast, repeatedly. Well, and get people, Chris Matthews, that are eloquent, that can speak to both

sides of their party and speak to middle America. Like, you know, I don't know Richie Torres that well, but I've seen him on TV. Richie knows his way around TV. He's a very effective spokesperson. AOC also, she is center left. I understand that. But she also can speak to middle America. Democrats need to get people, I'm just talking about facts and knows how to be nimble. Ideologically, she's to the left. Richie Torres is a little center right when it comes to Democrats.

And both of them know how to communicate effectively on this medium. I mean, why don't Democrats do that? Because again, as you've told me, you got Donald Trump saying that people who are 160 years old are getting Social Security checks, and Americans believe it because Democrats don't know how to rebut it. And the bar rooms of America tonight, there'll be people after their third or fourth beer

saying that story. They're going to say, did you hear the other night that people 160 years old are getting Social Security checks? Obviously, the grandkids are getting the checks. This system is corrupt. These clowns don't know how to run it. And it's the very—the essence of the Democratic Party is Social Security. They created the program basically with no Republican support.

They believe in it. They think it's the most important retirement program we have in this country. It's the foundation of most retirement programs when corporations actually had pensions. and it's for the people and you have to protect it And then here is the president United States declaring before the American people these clowns are Making a joke of their own system. They can't even run a Decent ship here and don't trust them We got to go to work on Social Security and I think he's setting himself up with Musk to do some work here. I think he's going in that direction.

Else why is he doing this thing? Yeah. I mean, let's see. I will say there are a couple things on the horizon that he's been talking about. It's going to be problematic. Number one, he's talking about slashing the number of employees at the IRS. I can tell you for anybody that's tried it, and I've heard it time and time again when I was in Congress, I've heard it time and time again over the past 20 years, any middle-class American that tries to get a tax refund check back from the IRS can't do it because they're already so radically understaffed and they're so underfunded.

That's one of the things that Joe Biden tried to correct. Be very careful slashing the IRS that dramatically because it will end up being unpopular with middle-class taxpayers who can't get their refund checks back in less than like a year if we keep having all of these things. And also VA affairs, I can tell you I had a ton of vets in my district when I served and and Veterans Affairs was so understaffed, it was impossible, impossible. We had, you know, it seems like we have crises in VA care every decade or so that the Veterans Affairs because they're understaffed as well. And you're talking about slashing people there again, very easy to talk about this generally on the campaign trail. I've done it.

Ain't so easy when you actually start trying to do it because working Americans are impacted. And John Meacham cares so much about working Americans and he's taking this fight out on the road. He cares so much that he has gone from his Pulitzer Prize winning library to now he is at the men's grill kitchen at Bellmead Country Club to talk to us this morning. Thank you John so much for

for for meeting with the teaming masses here. We find ourselves in this fascinating place and Donald Trump's well well, what are we, about halfway through his first 100 days, where there seemed to be all of these undercurrents, all of these crosscurrents. We had him charge out of the gate. Now it seems that the court cases are catching up with him. The conflicts of cabinet members going back and forth, court cases stopping certain moves, the United States Supreme Court with Amy Coney Barrett and John Roberts stopping some of the things that they did with USAID.

Why, John, this almost looks like Madisonian democracy. Almost, almost. Because you still have a central player, the president who, Woodrow Wilson said of the presidency, he can be as big a man as he can. That there can be this exertion of power and influence, and he will continue to speak in the vernacular of distrust, let me put it that way. Blessedly, it looks as if the checks and balances will likely check and balance the most extreme impulses. But I'm not entirely sure that's exactly what the president cares most about.

I think what he cares most about is what you and Chris were talking about, which is dominant, domineering attention and absolute, the appearance anyway, of absolute fealty. So the question to me watching all this has become, and we're only, here's a remarkable thing, it's been what, six weeks since the inauguration? I mean that's something to sort of stop and think about. Time is moving pretty slowly as we go through this.

Question is, what of what the president is doing becomes dispositive precedent? What of the, now there's the governmental changes. There are two elements here. There's the governmental changes. There are two elements here, right? There's the policy changes. He can, you're right, the thing about the ancient social security folks, Chris is exactly right. It's going to enter the imagination.

But you delay one check in a district. This is true. That's a whole different thing, right? Everybody's always against government except for their government, right? The farmers who voted MAGA, who suddenly realized that their foreign markets are closed, the folks who make whiskey that goes, you know, abroad and suddenly is not being drunk, you know, is just globalization. There's a reason the establishment reacted to globalization in the last 30 or 40 years. It's because globalization is real.

And you can't repeal that by executive order. So what I keep thinking about again and again is the president essentially wants to take us back to the 1920s, an isolationist era, a high tariffs, anti-immigrant sentiment. This is all kind of a Harding, Coolidge, Hoover thing. And I don't mean to throw Harding, Coolidge and Hoover under the bus. Please do. But that's the kind of republicanism. And here's the republicanism that has to stand up. And that's the republicanism, as you know, Joe, of Eisenhower.

Eisenhower had a very conservative brother out of practice law out in Tacoma who would write him a slightly older brother he'd write him letters all the time saying poor Dwight you're not doing things right let me as your older brother tell you and we all know everybody's got one in the family right so Edgar Eisenhower writes and said yeah it looks as though, you know, you're not cutting fast enough. This is more Truman, more Roosevelt. People aren't happy. And Eisenhower writes him back and says, any politician who tries to cut social security when it's become part of the fabric of the country will commit suicide and there are a few extremists, but they are stupid and What Eisenhower did is he ratified a consensus that the state has a role to play an extended role to play in people's lives and

in many ways the Trump world is a reaction to that consensus. And the reason there was a consensus is that's what people wanted. Well, you know, the thing is, again, it's great talking about it generally, but you even look at Margaret Thatcher. Margaret Thatcher, you know, I'm going after everything. Margaret Thatcher did not go after Britain's health care system. She just, she, she, even she knew, got to stay away from that. And, you know, there are a lot of people who, who say, if you look at the budget of the United States of America,

they say we're basically an insurance company with an army. Why do they say that? Because Elon Musk can run around with his chainsaw and say, I'm going to cut this, I'm going to cut that. We got a $36 trillion debt. The Trump plan adds another $20 trillion over the next decade. And Jonathan O'Meara, we keep saying this for a reason, And Jonathan O'Meara, we keep saying this for a reason, because this is why you're going to have all of these plans like run slam into reality. It's because 90% of the budget goes to Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, defense,

and interest on the debt. We spend more money on interest on the debt than we do defending our own country. That's how terrible our $36 trillion debt has become. And so, you know, Ronald Reagan used to have this saying, following up on what Chris Matthews said about what happens when a social security check doesn't show up, Reagan's saying was that if your neighbor loses a job, it's a recession.

If you lose a job, it's a depression. So we could kind of change that given today's conversations about the 160-year-olds. If you're sitting in a bar telling a story about a 160-year-old that's still getting Social Security payments, that's a funny bar story. If you don't get your Social Security check next month, That's government tyranny. Like that, that when that starts happening, like, you know, the Pat Buchanan pitchforks come out. All of this sounds great generally.

But as Ross Perot would say, when the rubber hits the road, that's when all of this stops. Yeah, Ross Perot may be right on that one. Certainly right now the Trump team is running into a little reality already. And that's what we saw yesterday with his efforts to somewhat rein in Elon Musk. I'm told White House advisors, look, they're seeing the polls where Trump's pro-rating has dipped a little bit. Musk has dipped quite a bit. They saw the anger at the town halls that many Republicans faced in the last week or two.

In fact, now the NRCC is telling them to stop having those town halls. They're starting to hear these stories about how these cuts are impacting real people in ways that they didn't anticipate because they were going so fast and going so big. And also some cabinet members push back here saying, look, this is our department. Yeah, we probably will do some cuts, but not like this. So David Drucker, let's get you first of all on that, your sense of where Elon Musk still stands in the Trump orbit. And then secondly, this adds to chaos and confusion, which I know you're also writing

about in terms of how Trump's approach to the Defense Department here, a lot of mixed signals about what he wants to do. Go big, go small. Yeah, the people in Washington that are watching the president's defense spending plans and policy really don't know what to think. And you know, of all of the things that Trump does and talks about that have a sense of indecision to them, which is the way he likes it, usually you can depend on him. If you go back to the first term, you listen to him throughout his three campaigns, you can depend on him wanting to spend more money on the military.

You can depend on him more recently to at least want to begin the so-called pivot to China, right? It's a part of why he wants to supposedly reduce our commitments in Europe and the Middle East because we have this looming Chinese threat. And what Republicans and Pentagon watchers are telling me is that they don't actually know if any of that is true. They think it's possible that the president may be gearing up for defense cuts. They think it's possible that instead of pivoting resources to China, he may want to set up the United States to sort of be a more of a regional power that accepts Chinese hegemony in the Asian Pacific.

And again, the key words here are might and may because nobody really knows. And there's just so much indecision about this coming from the White House. You know, the thing about Trump and the way he operates, which gives him some political leeway here, is he says things that many Americans feel, even if we complain that he exaggerates or says things that aren't true. Because whether you talk to Democrats or Republicans across the country, they will tell you that they think the government spends money in ways it shouldn't, and therefore it's hurting the ways it's able to spend money in the ways they want it to. And so when you're talking about ways for Democrats to push back on this, you can't

get caught up in defending the government. You need to understand that people are uneasy about how the government operates and focus on making the government work better. Nobody likes the IRS, for example, Joe. Nobody. You know that. I know that. If you defend the idea that the IRS is getting cut, people are going to fall asleep.

If you tell them your refund checks may not show up, then they're gonna stand up and pay attention. And I think what Republicans are trying to grapple with here is how do they go along with somebody like Elon Musk, who's very popular with the Republican base, who's very popular with Republican voters, who's more well known even than Vice President J.D. Vance, without allowing the Department of Government efficiency cuts to blow back

on them just in time for the 2026 midterm elections. And you hit on something there, David, that we're watching from Democrats. They're trying to make this as human a story as possible, bringing these folks as guests to the joint address, highlighting what's happening in their own communities. I will say make it even just last night congressman Pat Ryan who's from a district in the upstate area of New York was spotlighting a cut that is hitting in his district people who receive HUD HUD subsidies for some of their housing are

now being kicked out some of them according to a local news report or veterans those are exactly the kinds of stories that lawmakers are going to try to spotlight. And even just this morning, a Democratic strategist who was on my show said they are starting to field phone calls in the D trip and in other campaign areas of veterans of people who have lost their jobs saying, Hey, I'm not just mad enough about this that I want to go to a town hall and talk about it. I want to run for Congress. I want to come to Washington and be part of the way to stop it. So, Mika, this is going to be one of the cross currents

that Republicans have to be aware of, but then also that Democrats could potentially try to take advantage of. It's a long road to the midterms, but that's what they're looking towards. Yeah, as it starts to hit home. Historian John Meacham, thank you very much for being on this morning.

And coming up on Morning Joe today marks 60 years since Bloody Sunday and the March for Civil Rights in Selma, Alabama. The Reverend Al Sharpton joins us next to discuss that significant moment in U.S. history. We're back in 90 seconds. We'll march dramatized to the nation, dramatized to the world, that hundreds and thousands of Negro citizens of Alabama, but particularly here in the Black belt area, denied the right to vote. We intend to march to Montgomery to present St. Grievous to Governor George C. Wallace. Mr. Williams, what are you going to do if you get stopped?

What are we going to do if we get stopped? Well, we hope we won't get stopped. And if we get stopped, we're going to stand there and try to negotiate and talk them into letting us go ahead to Montgomery. We were so peaceful, so quiet, no one saying a word. We were beaten, tear gassed, some of us was left bloody right here on this bridge. Seventeen of us were hospitalized that day. But we never became bitter or hostile. We kept believing that the truth we stood for would have the followers sad. That was the late congressman and civil rights hero John Lewis shown first accompanied by civil rights leader Hosea Williams before, during, and 50 years after the events of March 7, 1965 in Selma,

Alabama. The images of Lewis and hundreds of others in the march being attacked on what is remembered as Bloody Sunday, where broadcast across the country shocking the nation and helping shift public opinion in favor of the civil rights movement. Let's bring in the president of the National Action Network and host of MSNBC's Politics Nation, Reverend Al Sharpton. He will be traveling to Selma tomorrow to commemorate the 60th anniversary of Bloody Sunday.

But Rev, today, where are we in the journey? Well, we are in serious question about the journey because we're seeing states all over this country change a lot of their voting laws. We're seeing a lot of places where voting rights are being changed in terms of easy access to early voting. People cannot even get water online. So there's been a concerted effort to undo the right to vote. In 1965, when there was a Voting Rights Act that

followed the Bloody Sunday, the story was often told to those of us who were too young to have been there on that original march, how when Lyndon Johnson as president signed the Civil Rights Act, Dr. King said to him, now we need a Voting Rights Act. And President Johnson said, well, Martin, I've used all my power. I can't get a Voting Rights Act. And when they left the White House, Andrew Young with Dr. King, who was an aide to Dr. King, Andrew Young said, you heard what the president said, Dr. King? He said he doesn't have

the power. What are we going to do now? And Dr. King said, well, I guess we're going back south and get him some power. And that led to the Selma March to dramatize the need to vote. When they marched that Sunday, they had no idea the troopers would do what they did. They were planning a 10-day march. And in fact, they were tear gassed. They were beaten. Amelia Boynkin, who had brought them to Selma, tear gassed. And the drama of that being televised outraged Americans and led to the Civil Rights Act. So every year, people have gone back and re-enacted that march. I've been there the last 25 years as I've been old enough and out running civil rights.

And on this 60th occasion, I think about the progress that has been made and the threat. The progress is, as you show, I marched across that bridge with the first black president during the first, during the 50th anniversary. Now on the 60th anniversary, we're facing a president that in our judgment is hostile to those rights. Great progress, extraordinary progress, and great challenges, extraordinary challenges. You know, Gene, just looking back at the pictures, the video, listening to Ref talk about it and how it led to the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

I'm struck that really, again, it's extremes, it's excesses, it's hatred, it's violence that always backfires. Would Dr. King always would say that you can't defeat hate with hate, you can only defeat it with love? Well, you look at Selma and the year before that, you look at what happened in Birmingham with the church bombing that killed

those poor young little girls in Sunday school. It was both of those tragedies that shook Americans, that shook quote, moderate whites into action, which is why we got the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. It is an extraordinary history, and through all of this, Martin Luther King Jr. preached peace. They show us hate, we will show them love and we will win. And he did.

Yeah, I am in awe and will always be in awe of the vision and the bravery that it took to march out across that bridge, knowing what was going to happen. And yet, moving ahead in peace, in nonviolence, but insistently with great courage. It was just an amazing thing, a historic moment. And it shocked the conscience of the nation to see the beatings and the gassings and the terrible injuries being inflicted, John Lewis's head being cracked open. So my question to Rev, do we still have a conscience? Does this country still have a conscience? How do you reach that part of people that it's where their faith resides. It's where their inner self Lives how do you reach that at a moment when?

Diversity is being demonized Equality is being demonized How do you how do you do that and is there still a conscience? I think that that's the test that we face. Every time there's been a step forward, there's always been the backlash. And I think that we did see conscience when George Floyd happened, just like the tragedy in Selma led to the Voting Rights Act, just like Birmingham bombing led to the Civil Rights Act.

George Floyd brought us to another moment and where a lot of the things that are being fought now, diversity, equity, and inclusion, and others were reaction to that tragedy. And I think the backlash has been the president of the United States now, who has come behind that trying to push it back. But I think that there are people with conscience

that's gonna fight back, that's not going to let us go backwards. And it's up to us to pass the test in time like Dr. King and John Lewis and others did in that time and not allow us to go back. Yes, there are people that are evil, but those of us that believe that we can be righteous even in the face of evil need to stand up and be counted and report to duty. And, Reb, you're doing such extraordinary work, not only keeping that legacy alive,

but also pushing forward with it in the present day. And, Mika, certainly we'll be watching the commemorations this weekend. Yeah. Certainly. President of the National Action Network of Reverend Al Sharpton, thank you very much. Politics Nation will be airing live from Selma, Alabama, Sunday at 5 p.m. Eastern on MSNBC. And straight ahead on Morning Joe, we'll have the latest highlights here

from the fourth annual 3050 Summit here in Abu Dhabi. We'll then turn to the war in Ukraine as the Trump administration looks to strike a peace deal. Former U.S. ambassador to Poland, Mark Brzezinski, will weigh in on that. Plus, New York Times opinion columnist Thomas Friedman will be joining the conversation as he argues the president is hiding something on Ukraine. Morning Joe will be right back. Home industry in Kentucky is going to be inset. It will hurt our industry and push up prices of homes, cars. And so I want to continue to argue against tariffs.

I'm worried about the tariffs. We're in uncharted waters. I think if the tariffs do start to cause inflation, I think the president will back away from them. Should he back off of it if it starts to hurt? When we start losing, you back off, you know? There's such a thing as a strategic retreat. At the end of the day, I think we have more leverage than any other nation, but we got to be smart and we don't have all the leverage. Those are just a few Republican senators expressing their concerns over President Trump's tariffs. It comes as Donald Trump has now postponed

imposing those 25 percent tariffs on a variety of imports from Canada and Mexico just two days after implementing them. The exemptions apply to about half the goods coming in from Mexico and around 40% of the imports from Canada that comply with the North American trade deal reached during Donald Trump's first term. Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal editorial board continues to focus on this, arguing that Trump's tariffs are no emergencies. David Drucker, no emergencies. And David Drucker, it is consistent every day. The Wall Street Journal editorial page are either talking about what Republicans have always talked about, how damaging tariffs are, or the editorial below that talks about the one-sided deal that Donald Trump is trying to push on the Ukrainians and how it's going to end up being devastating for Ukraine and the West.

Let's talk about tariffs, though. Where are the Republican senators, where are Republican House members on tariffs right now and how concerned are they with the market falling? How concerned are they with a threat of a recession or massive inflation? Look, I think they're concerned about all of that. Most Republicans in Congress don't philosophically believe in tariffs the way Donald Trump does, particularly for Republicans who have been here for quite a long time. But there are more supporters of the president's approach to this than there were in the first

term. And another key thing here, Joe, of course, they're concerned. And I know that in Washington, the lobbying effort for exemptions from tariffs, using Republicans who are close to the president to get to him because he does like interaction. And they figure by having Republicans the president has relationships with to make the case, they have a better chance of either winning an exemption or at least gaining a hearing with the president to get him to look at this differently. We've covered this at the Dispatch extensively.

But here's the thing about this. The president in the first term had horrible political standing with the American people, voters writ large from the very beginning. He was in the low 40s, never had a honeymoon, and he was surrounded on his economic team and across the cabinet by traditional Republicans who urged him to abandon the tariffs or to not pursue them. So he had a much different sort of echo chamber around him. It wasn't his echo chamber, it was the more traditional Republican echo chamber we're used to. This time around, he's surrounded by cabinet members, by aides who believe in his tariff policy and are not urging

him away from it. He's getting much less pushback from Capitol Hill because you mentioned how strong his numbers are. He's enjoying a traditional honeymoon. And so they're going to give him leeway and latitude and not push back on him in a way that you might think. And if it doesn't work, I think

the hope is that he'll see that for what it is and back off on his own. There is a hope that he might see that and back off on his own, certainly from Capitol Hill. That's the private conversations that Republicans have.

But I think that you're right. The striking thing that's different about this Trump term is the way that there are so few guardrails here. Congress is remade in his image. The cabinet is remade in his image. Certainly all of his advisors in the White House. No longer are you seeing Reince Priebus playing against Steve Bannon, playing against Gary Cohn, Gary Kushner.

Those fiefdoms are gone. What does that mean now from a policy output perspective, Chris? We're seeing that. Will Republicans ever find the line for pushback? Well, he's taught the American people at the MAGA level what the truth is, as he knows

the truth. He believes in tariffs. He says, I love the word tariffs. Who else loves the word tariffs? But he has said so. And the MAGA base is so with him and the members of the Senate are so afraid of that base. That's what it comes down to.

He gets the base and the base tells the senators what to do. Capitol Hill, I was up there yesterday, it's different than it used to be. No one's in the House dining room. There's nobody getting together. The two parties don't meet each other. They don't even talk to each other It's that they go to their separate conferences the Republican and Democratic conferences They go to their fundraisers and it's all about getting in touch in touch with Donald Trump and the base They are scared to death of the base of the mega people Yeah It seems to be going around because it seems they're scared of the base on both sides of Pennsylvania Avenue.

Chris Matthews and senior writer for The Dispatch, David Drucker, thank you both. And you know, Mika, I talked about this a couple of days ago, and boy, it really is true when you're trying to figure out what Donald Trump is doing with tariffs. What he's doing with tariffs is what he's been talking about on tariffs for 40 years now. I mean, you can look at what he said, you know, going back into the late 1980s on the Today Show, and he said, America's suckers. We're suckers for Japan and all these other countries. We need to put tariffs there.

He's been a skeptic of NATO for 40 years now, saying we've spent too much money on NATO, a disproportionate amount, said that on Larry King 40 years ago. The same thing with foreign aid. He has been a skeptic of foreign aid now for 40 years. So there's a reason why it doesn't fit in with traditional conservatism, traditional republicanism, because republicans and conservatives have not believed that over the past 40 years. But the guy who is their president has and does. Yeah, and a lot of people like the message. We'll see how it goes, though. We are here, by the way, in Abu Dhabi

at the Forbes and Know Your Value 3050 Summit, a global event bringing together generations of women from both the 30 under 30 and the 50 over 50 lists. There are hundreds of women here from 46 different countries. We've also heard from many inspirational speakers. Take a look. Four years ago, this partnership with Forbes

immediately went global with the 3050 Summit here at the crossroads of the world. So I think it's safe to say, like the GPS says in your car, we have arrived. Women are so used to carrying the weight say like the GPS says in your car, we have arrived. Women are so used to carrying the weight. Yes. We will carry the weight on our minds, on our shoulders, in our spirits, on our bodies

because we're carrying somebody else's luggage. And I would say to women right now put down that excess luggage it is weighing you down it's not yours don't carry it let them carry their own weight. One of the biggest advantages to being in in rooms with folks who are not like you is you get a bigger perspective, a better perspective on the things you see and the things you don't. It's okay to be afraid, but the most important thing is to remember that you need to always move forward, right?

You deal with the fear, and the way you choose to deal with the fear is what's important. No successful man or woman ever was 100% of the decision they are making. This is what you always need to remember. You need to take risks. You need to say, hey, if I fail, so what? I try again tomorrow.

Joining me now, MSNBC contributor and vice chair of the 3050 Summit, Huma Abedin, and editor of Forbes Women, Maggie McGrath. Okay, the team's together. We're here at the crossroads of the world. And Huma, we're coming together at such a tumultuous time, which actually has made this event, if it's possible, even more impactful. We are living in tumultuous times

and we are living in a world of divide. What we are creating here and been building upon the last few years of the Forbes 3050 Summit is building a global community. We have women, as you said, from 46 countries. They come here every year and they know they can find a mentor, a friend, a new perspective, as Alexis just referenced, and acceptance.

And for new women who are coming, I think it's a whole new world of opportunity and possibility they are inspired I just got off a panel with Maggie we spoke to a writer an actor. A journalist and they all share very similar life experiences and have lots of words of wisdom to share. And I think this last night free to pinto tell us about that conversation free to Pinto successful actor creator producer maternal health and girls education advocate took the whole room

for a story of the you know the journey of her life where she entered Hollywood took the roles on that she thought society in the industry expected of her and it took her a while to find her own value to take a break get off the acting train and saying what do I want how do I tell stories that I want to tell that are more representative that incorporate a more holistic picture for the for the world and actually said that for girls to succeed especially little girls who feel like their futures are

limited they have to push to find and make space for themselves to be heard. I spoke with economist and also the wife of the prime minister of Albania about growing up in a communist isolationist society and then going through the changes. And it was so interesting and in some ways very timely to hear about the pressures that her family faced

and her country faced during such massive transition and then deep a cup had a cone Bollywood's highest paid actress and she was fantastic inspiring and had some really important advice about mental health and you guys just wrapped up our town hall Maggie tell us about it. It's one of the best events of the summit because we don't have time to take questions from the audience during the one-on-one interviews so we brought back Alka Joshi Marce Martin and we

talked about everything from your best mantra for success to there's a question about toxic toxic workplaces that drew a lot of comments from the audience and how do you deal with that as women and then Alka made a really beautiful point about how many female breadwinners there are and how we don't talk about that enough and how we have to own our power. Money is power. I think she gave us a great idea for future coverage in this summit. And tonight the awards real quick, what do we have to look forward to? We will be honoring Yusra Mardini, who you heard in one of

those clips, Lindsay Adario, a tremendously courageous photojournalist. We will also be, and this has been off the record until now, we will be honoring the work of Ursula von der Leyen. She is the president of the European Commission. We had hoped she would be here, but she's been dealing with some important issues, including in the last 24 hours, announcing an 800 billion euro defense package that will be crucial in defending Europe

and Ukraine as a whole. You, Mika, and your brother Mark will be acknowledging her, not just current work, but the entirety of her career. She's broken so many barriers and she is, of course, number one on the Forbes list of the world's most powerful women. So we are excited to hear what you and Mark have to say about her. Literally the most powerful woman in the world. Huma, Maggie, thank you very much. You can check out more highlights from the 3050 Summit at knowyourvalue.com and of course all over social.

We'll have much more for you about the event next week on Morning Joe.